Skin
Published in CRUSH
September 2017
Skin is the border between North and South Korea. It is the site of tension, and when tension makes contact, touches down, becomes real: violence. It’s always the first to go. The feathers, the fur, the scales, the peel, the wrapper. The permeable pulp concoction that is acted on. Acted through. The placid, undisturbed surface, until it is disturbed. Until the pristine is punctured, until the precipice is transgressed, until the purity is sullied, until release. “He got a nail underneath it, and when he raised it, but ever so slightly, it suddenly came off, the whole hard brown scab came off beautifully, leaving an interesting little circle of smooth red skin. Nice. Very nice indeed.”[1] This is where the most violent encounters with the world occur. Whenever touched, it touches back. Skin is an immediate and sensitive two-way conduit. Touch is the most physical sense, the most real. It’s the most honest too. It’s not easy to deceive the skin. Our people costumes are sticklers. Skin is the closest we can get to truth.
We’re constantly struggling to break through our skin, to get past ourselves, to bring others through, to break through another’s skin. Our struggle for osmosis. Skin’s what you need to get the drugs through, the dick past, and the dreams beyond. Buddhist monastics, in order to wane sexual temptation, visualize what lies beneath the skin – urine, bile, intestines pushing shit through. “It was a religious moment. I learned what it means to be a body, Jim. Just meat wrapped in a sort of flimsy nylon stocking.”[2] The erotic always overlays the unmentionables. It gives room and board to the taboos that fester beneath – the taboos we all agree are taboos. The taboos we all have in common and all agree to ignore as much as possible. Skin is a shared suspension of disbelief. It is a veil – supple, sensual, and titillating. It’s the label, the packaging, the cloak. It’s an illusion that allows us to believe in false divides, to overlook the fallacy of boundaries. That’s why we’ll never succeed at getting beyond our selves. There is no line to cross.
Do you ever feel contained? Stuck inside your own skin? Like that skin isn’t yours? That it’s past the threshold of you? That it contains all that you are and all you’re ever going to be – static and sanguine? “Doomed to dwell encased within this fleshly prison.”[3] How about now? When you bleed – that’s not you bleeding. That’s you coming out of your skin. Spilling out of your perpetual cocoon. How far must you travel from yourself to not be you? I feel it most in my hands. I think it’s because that’s where I reside. They’re these things with ten smaller things on them that work together to act on the world, to manipulate it, to exact my will, to demonstrate my agency. They’re me. And they’re contained. Held within. By gloves of flesh, so neatly wrapped around them. So taught and custom. Vacuum formed with precision.
“Now, we’ll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer’s Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood.”[4] Blood brothers. An intimately shared rupture. A place of camaraderie. And violence, and eroticism. Where we experience the most knowable love. Skin is the plane of activity, of action, of life. It responds to its environment – hardens, softens, cracks, fuses, heals, stretches, tightens, folds. It’s ever changing, living and dying, peeling and bleeding, flaking, sweating, glistening, glowing, growing, sprouting hair, spurting moles, cultivating bacteria. Pulsing with life, this callous film. And death. Nothing’s possible without death, without destruction. And destruction’s just the first step in recycling. That’s all we’re really doing here.
[1] Roald Dahl, “The Wish,” in Skin and Other Stories (New York: Puffin Books, 2002), p. 90 (punctuation modified).
[2] David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (New York: Back Bay Books, 2006), p. 169 (punctuation modified).
[3] Cyril Scott, The Voice of the Ancient (London: Forgotten Books, 2013), p. 4 (punctuation modified).
[4] Mark Twain, Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2011), p. 245 (punctuation modified).
Published in CRUSH
September 2017
Skin is the border between North and South Korea. It is the site of tension, and when tension makes contact, touches down, becomes real: violence. It’s always the first to go. The feathers, the fur, the scales, the peel, the wrapper. The permeable pulp concoction that is acted on. Acted through. The placid, undisturbed surface, until it is disturbed. Until the pristine is punctured, until the precipice is transgressed, until the purity is sullied, until release. “He got a nail underneath it, and when he raised it, but ever so slightly, it suddenly came off, the whole hard brown scab came off beautifully, leaving an interesting little circle of smooth red skin. Nice. Very nice indeed.”[1] This is where the most violent encounters with the world occur. Whenever touched, it touches back. Skin is an immediate and sensitive two-way conduit. Touch is the most physical sense, the most real. It’s the most honest too. It’s not easy to deceive the skin. Our people costumes are sticklers. Skin is the closest we can get to truth.
We’re constantly struggling to break through our skin, to get past ourselves, to bring others through, to break through another’s skin. Our struggle for osmosis. Skin’s what you need to get the drugs through, the dick past, and the dreams beyond. Buddhist monastics, in order to wane sexual temptation, visualize what lies beneath the skin – urine, bile, intestines pushing shit through. “It was a religious moment. I learned what it means to be a body, Jim. Just meat wrapped in a sort of flimsy nylon stocking.”[2] The erotic always overlays the unmentionables. It gives room and board to the taboos that fester beneath – the taboos we all agree are taboos. The taboos we all have in common and all agree to ignore as much as possible. Skin is a shared suspension of disbelief. It is a veil – supple, sensual, and titillating. It’s the label, the packaging, the cloak. It’s an illusion that allows us to believe in false divides, to overlook the fallacy of boundaries. That’s why we’ll never succeed at getting beyond our selves. There is no line to cross.
Do you ever feel contained? Stuck inside your own skin? Like that skin isn’t yours? That it’s past the threshold of you? That it contains all that you are and all you’re ever going to be – static and sanguine? “Doomed to dwell encased within this fleshly prison.”[3] How about now? When you bleed – that’s not you bleeding. That’s you coming out of your skin. Spilling out of your perpetual cocoon. How far must you travel from yourself to not be you? I feel it most in my hands. I think it’s because that’s where I reside. They’re these things with ten smaller things on them that work together to act on the world, to manipulate it, to exact my will, to demonstrate my agency. They’re me. And they’re contained. Held within. By gloves of flesh, so neatly wrapped around them. So taught and custom. Vacuum formed with precision.
“Now, we’ll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer’s Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood.”[4] Blood brothers. An intimately shared rupture. A place of camaraderie. And violence, and eroticism. Where we experience the most knowable love. Skin is the plane of activity, of action, of life. It responds to its environment – hardens, softens, cracks, fuses, heals, stretches, tightens, folds. It’s ever changing, living and dying, peeling and bleeding, flaking, sweating, glistening, glowing, growing, sprouting hair, spurting moles, cultivating bacteria. Pulsing with life, this callous film. And death. Nothing’s possible without death, without destruction. And destruction’s just the first step in recycling. That’s all we’re really doing here.
[1] Roald Dahl, “The Wish,” in Skin and Other Stories (New York: Puffin Books, 2002), p. 90 (punctuation modified).
[2] David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (New York: Back Bay Books, 2006), p. 169 (punctuation modified).
[3] Cyril Scott, The Voice of the Ancient (London: Forgotten Books, 2013), p. 4 (punctuation modified).
[4] Mark Twain, Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2011), p. 245 (punctuation modified).